The violence our country is going through has left an unprecedented impact on the lives of at least 105,020 families who, from 1964 to date, have seen a loved one disappear, according to figures from the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons. the Ministry of the Interior (Segob).
So far in the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, that is, from December 1, 2018 to August 28, 81,634 reports of disappearances have been filed, of which 35,748 cases were still pending resolution.
Although it is clear that the disappearances in Mexico are not exclusive events of the government of President López Obrador —since the data indicates that it was from the six-year term of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa when the trend of disappeared or unaccounted for persons grew—, it is highlighted that currently the disappearances reach historic highs, to the point of doubling or tripling cases compared to the two previous administrations.
According to Segob data, in the equivalent period of Enrique Peña Nieto’s mandate —December 1, 2012 to August 28, 2016—, the disappearance of 59,678 people was reported, of which 18,174 are still located.
Meanwhile, between December 1, 2006 and August 28, 2010, a similar period for the administration headed by Felipe Calderón, 15,810 people disappeared and 6,633 people remain unaccounted for.
Overall, of the 105,020 missing and unaccounted for persons recorded from 1964 to yesterday, 74% (78,269) are men and 24% (26,016) women.
women’s cases
The cases of disappearances of women have increased over the last three six-year terms.
In the analyzed period of the government of Felipe Calderón, there were 1,252 missing and unaccounted for women, which represents 18.8% of the total cases.
During the same period of the Peña Nieto government, the figure grew by 251%, adding 4,396 cases, and which also represented 24.1% of the total registered cases at that time.
While in the government of López Obrador, the disappearances of women increased 110% compared to the same period of Peña Nieto, since until August 28, at least 9,261 women are disappeared; 25.9% of the total unresolved cases in this government.
On the other hand, to date 17,593 cases of children and adolescents who disappeared remain unresolved.
In turn, the National Registry of Missing and Non-Located Persons (RNPDNO) indicates that there are 1,080 unsolved cases of migrants who were last seen in national territory: 482 of Honduran nationality, 411 Guatemalan and 187 Salvadoran.
CNIH, with setbacks
The National Center for Human Identification (CNIH) will start functions without a clear coordination scheme, warned groups of relatives of disappeared persons in Mexico.
They regretted that the National Forensic Data Bank, the Extraordinary Identification Mechanism and even the National Guard still do not exist.
This August the CNIH should have started operating, with the aim of identifying the more than 52,000 unknown bodies found in public morgues.
However, relatives of disappeared persons and specialists are concerned about how it will be coordinated with the rest of the forensic institutions and if it will have a sufficient budget.
The disappearance of people must stop being a paradigm of the perfect crime, only in this way will Mexico stop adding more than 100,000 disappeared people and it will be possible to talk about justice, truth and reparation”, affirmed families of disappeared people.
Processes in the region
Anita Celaya of the Committee of Relatives of Deceased and Disappeared Migrants of El Salvador argued that the presidents of the region must standardize their processes to search for disappeared persons.
As part of the events for the International Day of the Victims of Forced Disappearance, which is commemorated on August 30, 45 relatives of 24 search groups from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico met in a meeting convened by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
At the event Celaya warned that the groups in the region have noticed an increase in the disappearance of girls, adolescents and women.
“For families it is difficult to know who to approach,” said Flor Idalma González Andrés, of the Guatemalan collective Oxlajuj Ajpop.
The relatives highlighted that among the nations of the region, only Mexico has specific legislation to deal with disappearances and an official registry.
However, Jérémy Renaux of the ICRC warned that there are no accurate official records on missing migrants or deceased persons without identity who could be migrants in Mexico.
In Guatemala, according to data from the Ministry of the Government published by Prensa Libre, 44,122 disappearances were recorded from 2003 to 2021, but there is no record of how many of these people were located.
In El Salvador, the institutions disagree on the figures: a report by the Foundation for the Application of Law (Fespad) shows that while the National Civil Police reported 12,495 complaints, the Attorney General recognized 22,307 victims between 2014 and 2019 .
For their part, the Honduran authorities do not even count their disappeared men and women.
“The coincidence (between these countries) is the delay on the part of the prosecutors in receiving the complaints but also the omission during the aftermath of the investigation that they should and do not do,” said María Luisa Núñez, of the Voces por Nuestro collective. Disappeared from Puebla.
